Venezuela Accuses Guyana Of Lying About Border Dispute

CARACAS, Venezuela, CMC – Venezuela has accused Guyana of “falsely accusing” Caracas of carrying out military operations in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country.

Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said that Guyana president David Granger “lied” about the alleged presence of a Venezuelan military ship in Georgetown, which she was said was part of a book published by Guyana and handed out at the recent General Assembly of the United Nations.

“The Guyanese president is misleading the international community because that picture of a Venezuelan ship was taken in 2011 in Spain and not in Georgetown as Granger affirms,” she said.

Rodriguez said a copy of the book was also given to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a recent meeting attended by both Granger and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in New York.

“Granger has lied to the UN secretary general and accused Venezuela of intimidating Guyana’s peace with the alleged presence of this military ship in his country. It’s clear that he doesn’t want to settle this old dispute with dialogue and respect,” the foreign affairs minister said.

She said her country will send proper documentation to Ban and other delegations at the UN to deny these “misleading accusations” and will talk to other Caribbean governments to “confront a media campaign” regarding the Essequibo issue.

Rodriguez called on Guyana to respect the 1966 Geneva agreement and cease its “defamation campaign” against Venezuela.

Venezuela and Guyana agreed to redeploy their respective ambassadors and begin talks with the mediation of the United Nations after a meeting last month that was mediated by the UN Secretary General.

Earlier this year, Maduro issued a Decree that included all the Atlantic waters off the Essequibo Coast.

The purported annexation of the waters off Essequibo now takes in the oil-rich Stabroek Block, where American oil giant Exxon Mobil in May found a “significant” reserve of high quality crude oil.

ExxonMobil said the discovery was made in one of the two wells it dug, in the Liza-1 drill site, which realised more than 295 feet of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone.

At the end of their annual summit in Barbados in July, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries reaffirmed the “longstanding, deep and wide-ranging friendship between CARICOM and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela”.

But the regional leaders said they had discussed the Decree and “noted in particular the negative implications which the Decree has for the peace, security and development of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.

The dispute between the two countries stems from an 1899 court ruling that required Venezuela to relinquish an undeveloped but resource-rich jungle territory called the Essequibo.

But Caracas contends the ruling was invalid after a treaty was signed in 1966 with Guyana and its former colonial power Britain.